Experiment #2 - Madonna VHD I don't care about, same thing light scrub with Dawn and warm water then rinse with distilled water and dry with Norwex cloth and it seems to play fine. I guess there is no way to know if this is doing damage somehow but if I run across another unwatchable disc seems like I've nothing to lose.

Experiment #3 - Little Shop of Horrors first play wouldn't make it through the opening sequence without bad skipping, I just ran it under warm water then rinsed with distilled water and dried with compressed air and it seems to be playing fine. I'm almost thinking some sort of rinse process might be best so you never actually touch the surface with anything but water.

Do they have a coating like the CED discs??That lubrication is supposed to protect the stylus, but VHD could have been made differently??

I guess that's the question. I'm playing and I even took some dawn dishsoap to the disc and then rinsed with distilled water and it plays perfect, now did I damage something??

I'm not sure I buy that silicone coating thing, I mean I have a turntable with a very expensive stylus and I don't think twice about wet cleaning my records???

I’m glad you tried this experiment and I’m thrilled it worked.

Records...are one chunk of vinyl with no coating. Totally immune to water %100. They also work by vibrating the needle instead of modulating by variable capacitance. They are nothing alike except for the groove witch is HUGE compared to VHD/CED. Records are probably the most durable, resurrectable format ever.

Do we know for a fact that VHD (or CED for that matter) does have some protective coating? I know they are different than a record but it's still dragging a needle over plastic? And if they do in fact have this coating do we know for a fact that rinsing them in soapy water is somehow destroying that coating?

Also isn't skipping the stylus getting (violently??) bounced around? Isn't a smooth play less wear and tear than a skipping one?

Also I don't believe it has to do with smooth or bumpy, its about dragging, since the stylus of any type is being essentially "dragged" across the surface it willdepend on what that factor will do in the long run.

Also I don't believe it has to do with smooth or bumpy, its about dragging, since the stylus of any type is being essentially "dragged" across the surface it willdepend on what that factor will do in the long run.

what are the models? is it another General one? I have 2 National ones but only the DP-30 works but I don't have skipping issues only a grainy image almost like a worn tape.

The General brand I have now uses a Victor stylus so it must be a Victor rebadge? When it isn't skipping the image is what I would call very good (Star Trek 2 and 3 except for being P&S looks better than some LD's).

The one I have coming is a Sharp which looks like a National rebadge??

Update on all of this. I got the Sharp player in yesterday and it tracks noticeably better than the General one that I have. Discs that had skipping issues in General do not with the Sharp and discs that would not even start playing with the General play with some issues on the Sharp so apparently the player is part of the overall equation when it comes to skipping.

Just wanted to add that I tried cleaning a disc I didn't care about with a Discwasher record cleaning kit and the result was disastrous- I could not get the residue from the cleaner off the disc and it played with a noisier picture and just as many or more skips than before. I will have to try the other side with just water and see what happens there.

BTW is there any way to safely get the discs out of the sleeves without damaging them? I got the top part removed, but the tabs inside the sleeve still block the disc from just sliding out- I assume the player bends it a bit. I got a slight scratch on the disc from those as well.

Still learning about this format but skipping has gotten REALLY frustrating. I have an NEC promo disc that skips like hell, but having only one copy I'm not going to experiment with that. I've played it a number of times and it still skips badly and the player even stops before reaching the end. I've had at least one disc improve with repeated plays, similar to CEDs, but still don't know a whole lot about how this format works. What exactly causes the skipping anyways, as there's no grooves and the stylus is supposed to know to stay on track based on the disc info? (I do have what I think is a brand-new stylus, but that doesn't make any difference on these bad discs. I do have some that play with no skipping so I know the equipment isn't at fault, at least not entirely.)

Records are not CDs. The grooves in records are HUGE by comparison and the information exists as physical texture. CED and VHD only use the (super tiny) groove to track with the data coming from variable capacitance in the disc’s coating. It’s sort of like a disc and a tape at the time time. Records are maybe the most durable and resurrectable format ever. You can barf all over a record, wait to clean it, and a month later the only thing permanently ruined will be the label. Records are amazing. As a civilization we’re vere lucky that rot-prone formats were invented later (for some reason). I speak only or vinyl here, of course, not shellacs of course.

You can clean whatever you want with whatever you want and we’ll all be glad to learn from it. So far you’ve had great success but I really wouldn’t use Groove Glide! That stuff is too much for records honestly unless you need to DJ with a specifically torn up disc and you don’t care how much crud it attracts after that. Record washers...maybe. I’d be careful of any kind of detergent since it may wipe the data later off.

That goes double for the wood glue method which *really* cleans dirty records well and I’m pretty sure will totally bork a CED.

I agree. CDs are amazing. Especially amazing is that they don’t wear from playing.

However the laquer layer is the weak point of a CD. Chemicals like vomit or sometimes just the smallest scratch in the right place will start the process of it flaking off. CDs that have a massive screen print label are much more immune to this. I wish it was part of the spec, honestly. The only CD I’ve personally ever done this two was an original FACTUS version of Power Corruption and Lies, which kind of sucks as that version is hard to find around here and all I have now is a very pretty case and a f-ed CD.

Another thing about records is you can litterally drill a hole in one or break a chunk off the edge and you can still play everything ahead of or in front of the hole. I’d imagine they handle the microwave oven a lot better too. Amazing stuff for like 1947 or whatever, especially compared to HDDVD or flash or LD.

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